WCW's Women Change Worlds Blog

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but before the leaked Supreme Court opinion, I had not connected the proximity of the Roe v. Wade decision and the passage of Title IX.

Yes, of course, I knew that Title IX was June 23, 1972. And that Roe v. Wade was 1973 (Jan. 22). But I had always held them as separate historic events that unfolded as I hit middle school.

Now, the “50-year anniversary” reminder attached to each has brought this temporal proximity (seven months) into view. Today these watershed events look less like sturdy partners on the road to gender equality and more like moments that foreshadowed a fraught present.

Roe v. Wade and Title IX bore the stamp of the times. Which was not to address inequality, but—like female athletes forced to re-use men’s sweaty athletic tape and wear their old uniforms and equipment, as Bernice Resnick Sandler reported—to jerry-rig something that let women shove a foot in the door.

And shove a foot in the door they did. Thanks to Roe v. Wade, women’s labor participation rose from 43.3 percent in 1970 to 57.4 percent in 2019 while men’s declined from 79.7 percent to 69.2 percent, according to federal data. However, the pandemic revealed the precariousness of such advances as striking numbers of women left the workforce amid reports of an extreme toll on wellbeing.

Like Roe v. Wade (rooted in the right to privacy and not actual gender equality) Title IX sought to address a problem—educational access—without disrupting what had been built for men.

Recently, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the end of Roe v. Wade would “set women back decades.” Already, we have heard suggestions that women who get abortions be charged with murder (for now, removed from a Louisiana bill; charges against a Texas woman were recently dropped). What’s more, we had to hear an Ohio state legislator proclaim that forcing a rape victim to bear a child would offer her an “opportunity.”

Nowhere have I heard about men’s responsibility in the abortion debate. Or new obligations or restrictions on their bodies.

Which brings me to Title IX. Like Roe v. Wade (rooted in the right to privacy and not actual gender equality) Title IX sought to address a problem—educational access—without disrupting what had been built for men.

Although Title IX was passed in 1972, regulations were not issued until 1975. Then, President Gerald Ford (a college football player) wrote to House and Senate leaders to welcome hearings as NCAA leaders voiced fears that the law “would signal the end of intercollegiate programs as we have known them for decades.” To be clear: Debate around Title IX was most concerned with preserving the sanctity of men’s sports.

Today, we face the consequences of a system built on the sex segregation of sport, that never demanded equality for female athletes, but rather gave rise to a complex set of rules around access and progress. Still, women have made strides. Most notably, U.S. Soccer recently agreed to provide men and women equal pay and World Cup prize money.

Yet, at the same time some female athletes get their just rewards, we face the question of how to include transgender athletes. It is a challenge to the sex-segregated structure of sport that has been waiting to unfold.

In some ways, this is nothing new. The International Olympic Committee and individual sport federations have grappled with it for years, puzzling over the necessity (or not) of surgery, hormone replacement regimens, and measuring testosterone levels so athletes may compete in the gender category that aligns with their identity.

Gender, biological sex, and the definition of a "physical advantage" are more complex than they appear on the surface. Which attributes are a boon varies depending on the sport. It’s no surprise that those physically endowed in some manner may have an edge.

Yet, given the public dominance of traditional male sports, it’s easy to forget that sports can be endlessly flexible. They are socially constructed. We may, at any time, at any level, organize, score, or arrange things differently. (Until 2004, badminton was played to 15 points, 11 for women’s singles. Now, all go to 21.) If we can create handicap systems and weight classes, each sport can find a fair way for all to compete. We could have co-gendered competitions, trans-specific or trans-integrated sports.

Title IX, like Roe v. Wade, looked like a tremendous win. And it was. But, before we further fuel a culture war in women’s sports, let’s recognize that we are bearing the backlash of legal strides, however wonderful, that never fully guaranteed women’s equality with men. Half a century on, it’s time to demand more.

Throughout the month of June, we’ll be exploring some of the new frontiers of Title IX here on Women Change Worlds.

Laura Pappano is writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women. An experienced journalist who writes about education and gender equity issues in sports, she has been published in The New York Times, The Hechinger Report, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. She is working on a book about parent activism in public schools.

For years it was a secret: that we had lives outside of work.

Thirty years ago, I dashed into the Massachusetts State House to interview the lieutenant governor, sat, opened a notebook—and a Cheerio fell off my blazer. I was mortified.

In those days, “juggling” was done with guilt. As a society, we debated whether women “could do both,” that is, be a parent and a professional. There is “the mommy track,” of course, an invention that codifies the failure of the American workplace.

The pandemic—ironically enough—may finally give us the opportunity to correct historic and structural problems with how work works.

That is not to say that the last nearly two years have not been tough. Working women with children and/or caretaking roles have been hit hard.

According to the U.S. Census, nearly 45 percent of mothers with school-aged children were not working in April 2020. A Deloitte Women @ Work survey of 5,000 women conducted from November 2020 to March 2021 found 77 percent reporting an increased pandemic workload even as two-thirds also reported bearing the greatest role in household tasks.

More than half felt less optimistic about their career, citing physical and mental health tolls. Fifty-seven percent planned to leave their current job within two years.

This data (and there’s more) underscore the burden on women that we have long known about, but ignored. Rather than address the root issue, society leaned harder on women, expecting them to tap their creativity, energy, and endurance to keep it all going. (By “women” I refer not to biology, but to the gender role often occupied by females.)

. . . when women entered the workforce in increasing numbers in the 1960s-1980s, they did it on men’s terms, beginning a frustrating effort to “be taken seriously.” That issue has not faded . . .

Arlie Hochschild created a sensation when she published “The Second Shift” in 1989. But decades later, little has changed. This is because modern-day, post-Industrial Revolution work is structured with men in mind, from the timing of meetings to conventions of what a “leader” looks, sounds, and acts like (talking over others and peacocking your dominance).

Rather than challenge the structure, when women entered the workforce in increasing numbers in the 1960s-1980s, they did it on men’s terms, beginning a frustrating effort to “be taken seriously.” That issue has not faded, and reporting, surveys, and advice columns have repeatedly returned to the challenge—as if doing the work itself wasn’t enough.

Despite passage of laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin), the problem persisted. After all, it took a long time—and much debate—to shake the belief that we needed sex-separate “help wanted” ads or that, as a July 30, 1970 New York Times headline put it, “Doctors Deny Woman’s Hormones Affect Her as an Executive.”

When Title VII first went into effect, an official with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission assigned to enforce the law insisted that it was not their task “to get on our charger to overturn patterns.” Yet patterns were (and are) exactly the problem. The New York Times wrote of “experts in sex discrimination” flummoxed by “the Bunny Problem”—how would the new law manage if a man applied for a job as a bunny at a Playboy Club?—under the August 20, 1965 headline, “For Instance, Can She Pitch for Mets?”

Such talk by officials and reportage by The New York Times now looks embarrassing. But it reveals the ingrained beliefs that we need to have sharp lines between women and men when it comes to work. Even if those lines have softened, a gender power differential remains in many fields. One has only to recall #MeToo coverage or examine the gender wage gap.

The pandemic offers us a reset button. We have been forced to work differently. We cannot un-see what we saw on Zoom.

To this last point, the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, whose analysis uses wage data from actual companies, reveals an ongoing issue. Interestingly, it tracks wage gaps by job role; the only positions in which women’s pay is comparable to men’s, according to the 2021 report, are “Laborers/Helpers” and “Administrative Support Workers.”

The pandemic offers us a reset button. We have been forced to work differently. We cannot un-see what we saw on Zoom. People have lives that are busy and complicated. Employers have been forced to trust employees to work away from the geography of the office and the gaze of supervisors. They learned that people, on their own, are actually quite productive.

Workers have also discovered there is more to one’s identity and life than work. We are now keenly aware that we have one life—and that things can change radically at any moment. We must use our time for stuff that matters. Work must now fit alongside other elements of life, not at the dominant center.

In November, a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs. Anyone who dines out or shops understands that the customer is no longer always right. It is a privilege to be served.

Employers everywhere are now in competition for talent. This alters the balance of power. It changes work conventions, such as how meetings run, who must be there, what the “workday” looks like, how power operates (no bonus points for hanging out at the office).

Let us hope it means an end to the “mommy track” mentality. The very notion that women with childcare responsibilities must degrade their ambition now looks repugnant. Or, taking away the moral layer, dumb.

It is telling that a co-working space in Brooklyn includes childcare. Men in leadership have long had flexibility in their work schedules (golf, anyone?). Why shouldn’t we all build in time for relationships and renewal?

America’s economy cannot afford to require people to choose between ambition and parenthood (or other caretaking). They are both part of life. The pandemic has been painful and exhausting. It’s not over yet. The past 20 months have been about survival, but they have also been about invention. In 2022, we must finally build a better workscape.

This does not mean replacing a male-normed workplace with a female-normed workplace. Rather, it means truly un-gendering jobs and work—and seeing one another not as employees or job functions, but as fellow human beings fully capable of both feeding a toddler Cheerios and writing a political profile.

Laura Pappano is writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women. An experienced journalist who writes about education and gender equity issues in sports, she has been published in The New York Times, The Hechinger Report, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.

Today, the International Day to End Violence Against Women and Girls, we call for a renewed commitment to this work in the U.S. The UN Women’s executive director has called for governments to make visible at the highest level a “commitment to addressing violence against women and girls in the context of COVID-19.” As we approach 2021 and look forward to a new federal administration in the U.S., we not only encourage our government to act immediately to work to end violence against women and girls (VAWG), but we also remind individuals and communities of the important roles they play in this work.

A commitment to ending VAWG is critical during the COVID-19 global pandemic. We know the facts: Violence against women is a human rights violation of pandemic proportions — and it is exacerbated during times of job loss, economic insecurity, and extended periods of time at home. COVID-19 has brought many stressors into homes across the U.S., and reports of domestic violence and child abuse, including sexual assault, have increased.

Even prior to the pandemic, one in three women worldwide (including in the U.S.) experienced physical or sexual violence, most often at the hands of an intimate partner. VAWG increases when families face economic challenges, including unemployment. Coping with health needs and concerns, grieving the deaths of loved ones, and caring for children have also contributed to higher stress levels, leading to an increase in VAWG. Furthermore, limited interactions with caring communities and a change in the nature and availability of services compound the problem and contribute to the violence that occurs behind closed doors.

We need to be vigilant in addressing violence and abuse and raise awareness on international, national, and local levels. First, we encourage our government to disseminate a strong message calling for an end to violence against women. We recognize that President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris have a lot on their respective plates right now, most notably the tremendous pressure to respond to the health crisis brought about by COVID-19 and its threat to all Americans. By prioritizing COVID-19 relief, the incoming administration also has an opportunity to begin reversing some of the negative effects the coronavirus pandemic has had in terms of VAWG.

Biden has prioritized ending violence against women legislatively in the past, but this issue needs to be brought to the forefront once more. An important immediate response is to reinstate the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) — originally co-authored by Biden during his days in the Senate, and renewed many times. VAWA supported a National Panel on Violence Against Women (on which Linda Williams served) designed to develop a research agenda to increase the understanding and control of violence against women and has supported quality care for victims while also mandating research efforts to support important violence against women research.

This act last expired in 2019. The most recent version, passed by the House of Representatives, addressed issues of violence against BIPOC women and the LGBTQ community, all of which are critical to combating VAWG today. Passage and reauthorization of a new VAWA will have to overcome the roadblocks previously encountered in the Senate, and its fate may depend on the results of the Georgia runoff races. We urge all government leaders to recognize the importance of a VAWA that is good for all women, children, and families — especially those who identify as BIPOC.

A decisive position is needed to lead us out of this dark time in the history of violence against women. Once we’ve reached the other side of the pandemic, there needs to be a focused effort — supported by ongoing research and community collaboration — leading to a consortium of federal agencies, researchers, practitioners, and survivors that will examine the next steps needed to end VAWG and to address social norms that promote it.

It is also critically important for the new administration to amend the regulations on how colleges and universities respond to sexual assault, not only to assure women’s equal access to education as provided by Title IX, but also to contribute to a change in the culture that currently, at best, minimizes and, at worst, encourages sexual violence, physical abuse, and sexual harassment of women and girls. On this day dedicated to ending violence against women and girls, it is time to stop minimizing the experiences of victims and to take decisive action to hold men accountable, starting at the highest levels of government.

Linda M. Williams, Ph.D., is director of the Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. Her research focuses on the justice system response to sexual violence, commercial sexual exploitation of women and children, human trafficking, intimate partner violence, and child maltreatment.

Hayley Moniz is a member of the Wellesley College class of 2022 who is majoring in Sociology. At the Wellesley Centers for Women, she was awarded the Class of 1967 Internship for the 2020-2021 academic year, which supports her work with Dr. Williams on the justice system response to sexual violence.

Women in academic dress marching in a suffrage parade in New York City, 1910. Source: Schlesinger Library; Photographer: Jessie Tarbox BealsOne hundred years ago today, the 19th Amendment was ratified in the U.S., granting women the right to vote. This anniversary is something to celebrate, and a time to look back with pride on how much women have accomplished. The fact that it falls this year – in the midst of a global pandemic, a reckoning with systemic racism, and arguably the most consequential election season of our lifetimes – also feels significant. Perhaps it’s an opportunity to reflect on what these times have taught us about the meaning of voting, and what we should keep in mind as November approaches.

This year in particular, we are reminded that voting is not just a personal act. It is an act of community, of stepping into the public sphere, of showing that you care about what happens to those around you. If the pandemic has had any positive impact, it is that we have seen how connected we are to each other. Many of us have adopted new habits that acknowledge this connection: picking up groceries for neighbors, putting signs in our windows to thank essential workers, wearing masks. Voting is another way of showing that we are all in this together.

We are also more aware this year of the ways in which, despite our deep interconnectedness, our society is not yet one in which every person has the same rights and opportunities. The protests spurred by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have brought this inequality to the forefront. And the inequality extends to voting. Though white women gained the right to vote in 1920, African American women, Latina women, Native women, and Asian American women have been forced to continue to fight for that right long afterwards.

Even today, voter suppression efforts in many parts of the U.S. mean that if you are a person of color, a student, elderly, or a person with a disability, you are more likely to encounter obstacles to vote: limited polling stations that result in long lines, names left off voter rolls, onerous voter ID requirements. These voter suppression tactics are not new, but we’re likely to face a barrage of them this fall.

It’s clear, then, that the struggle to ensure every person’s right to vote is far from over, 100 years after the 19th Amendment was passed. This struggle will require not only our votes, but our activism: educating ourselves about our rights, keeping election protection hotlines on speed dial, and supporting advocacy organizations that battle voter suppression. It’s critical that we reach beyond ourselves to focus on our communities. Can we share information about how to obtain mail-in ballots and ensure they are counted? Can we ask our elected officials to support legislation that expands the right to vote? We can all find a way to help, no matter how small.

So this November, we must vote like our lives depend on it – because they do. The women who spent 75 years fighting for the 19th Amendment knew that their lives depended on it, too. It’s true every election season, but it feels especially true this year.

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., is the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

The long march towards progress is often one that extends across generations. The U.S. woman suffrage movement, which resulted in women’s right to vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920 – took 75 years to produce the desired result. That’s three generations of women, each playing a specific role in getting that policy objective to the finish line. Along the way, there were movements and side movements and countermovements, all of which shaped the ultimate contours of that social justice victory. We’ve now gone 99 years past the ratification of the 19th Amendment – that’s almost four generations – and women’s equality is still far from realized. Thus, on this Women’s Equality Day, it seems most fitting to me, as we stare into the century mark of this milestone, that we make a full-court press to fast-track some gender equality moves that would signal a bona fide century’s worth of progress.

Here are my suggestions:

First, we should revisit the Equal Rights Amendment. Its simple yet powerful text, originally crafted in 1923 right after women got the right to vote and revised in 1943, reads:

• Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
• Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
• Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

In the late 1970s, the Equal Rights Amendment passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Carter, but failed narrowly during the state-by-state ratification process. That was 40 years ago. In 2019, the Equal Rights Amendment has regained attention, as theoretically only one more state needs to ratify the amendment to reach the majority needed. Do we have the political will to pass the Equal Rights Amendment now? Women’s equality was not a partisan issue then, nor is it one now; women in both parties desire equality and benefit from equality. Passing this constitutional amendment at long last would signal to America’s women and the world that women – and, in fact, people of all genders – are now truly included in “liberty and justice for all.”

Second, we should join the community of nations that has ratified the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (known as CEDAW). This international instrument, which has already been ratified by every country in the world except for Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Pulau, Tonga, and the United States, is basically like a global Equal Rights Amendment. It addresses women’s human rights and commits nations to legally enshrining them. While the U.S. has made various arguments about why it has not ratified CEDAW, a more powerful statement for gender equality would be to just ratify it!

Other actions that would signal that we are truly in the 21st century when it comes to women’s equality would be stronger laws, policies, and legal procedures that address sexual violence in all its forms for all women (with a nod to the recent groundswell known as the #MeToo Movement), and laws, policies, and legal procedures that enshrine gender spectrum equality (because gender in the 21st century doesn’t mean what it meant 99 years ago).

Lest we think these legal moves towards equality are ends in themselves, we can also consider the fact that social scientists have found links between legal equality at the national level and human wellbeing. For example, a recent multi-national study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence showed that greater gender equality at the national level correlates with greater life satisfaction among both female and male adolescents, even with other potentially-influential factors controlled. Thus, there is something to the notion that gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing are all interrelated and interdependent.

As we look back at and celebrate the generations of women who fought for the right to vote, let us remember that progress doesn’t end there. Each generation must pick up the baton and push forward for increased recognition of gender equality in the law and in our everyday lives. Let’s hope that this time next year when we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we will also be celebrating the ERA, CEDAW, and, all in all, a bona fide century’s worth of progress on gender equality!

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., is the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women.

I have been a fan of MarketPlace: Handwork of India for decades, not simply because it is a Fair Trade organization but also because I love their clothing. I am the happy owner of many of their shirts (long and short sleeved), dresses (winter and summer), jackets, and wraps. Some of my clothes are bordering on 30 years old, faded and sadly, no longer available -- not even on the clearance site.

Generally, I make my purchases from the catalog, not from their website. I would wait until the catalog arrived to make my choices and over time, I began to notice that the catalog held more than just items to purchase. Indeed, it had stories and photographs of the women -- their lives at work, at their homes, their children, their recipes, their excursions, their wishes, their struggles, and accomplishments. I was intrigued and wanted to know more. This was not your usual catalog.

Since my Wellesley colleague Emmy Howe and I were traveling to Delhi for the Sex/Ed Conference in November 2017, we decided to schedule some visits in the Mumbai area. Among those we wanted to visit was the office of MarketPlace, located in the suburbs of Mumbai. After some negotiations with the CEO Pushpika Freitas and with input from the local director/supervisor, Linda Machado, we arranged to visit their office in the Santacruz East area of Mumbai.

With our cell phones actively participating in locating the office, along with the skills of our car service driver, we arrived after lunch on November 14, 2017. About 12 women artisans were gathered together along with some staff -- they greeted us with a special handmade mandala on the floor, and after a candle lighting ceremony, they sang us a song that they had written.

Our conversation got off to a lively start as we shared with them a song, albeit on YouTube, “Bread and Roses” sung by Joan Baez, and told them about the history and lives of women workers in the garment industry in the U.S.

With translation provided by some of the social workers from the NGO part of MarketPlace, called SHARE, which is responsible for the social development and empowerment of the women, along with our host Linda Machado and with some of the artisans who spoke English, we discussed the MarketPlace clothing that I wore and how I had spread the word among my colleagues. In addition, and more substantively, we discussed some of the unique features that MarketPlace offered them -- help with the education of their children, literacy programs, health improvements, the kids programs (148 kids between ages 4-25 years old); and how some of them had been promoted from within from artisan to supervisor. As they were promoted within the organization, they were provided with additional training in accounting and bookkeeping. Throughout our time together, we detected their obvious pride in their work and in their organization. One of the women said, “If not given this opportunity, we’d be washing dishes or doing housework in someone else’s house.”

Another special experience awaited us after some of the women artisans left with their bags of garments, which needed their embroidery; we climbed the stairs to the workshop. There we met additional artisans who worked on sewing machines, creating some of the prototypes for new clothing. Best of all, we watched a weekly discussion group -- an article of interest from the newspaper was selected and a group of women, ranging in age from 20-70 years old, sat in a circle expressing their opinions. This week’s topic was on dowry, which provided for a heated conversation. Even though we could not follow the conversation in Hindi, we noticed the animation that it produced. I asked Linda privately if all of the women were literate and she told me that some were not but the articles were read aloud so all participants were able to be involved.

The visit with the artisans in Santacruz East was so meaningful and vivid, and I know that I speak for both Emmy and myself when I say that we treasured our time there and the photos that we have of it. I will buy their clothing with new meaning attached to each and every item. And a big thank you.

Nan Stein, Ed.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She has conducted research on sexual harassment/gender violence in K-12 schools and teen dating violence for more than 30 years and co-led the Shifting Boundaries, school-based dating violence prevention program.

Maggie Tripp (1921-2014) was a trailblazer with a special connection to the Wellesley Centers for Women. Known for her impeccable appearance in Peck & Peck suits (who remembers these??) when everyone else was dressed in jeans, she was an “improbable” feminist whose indomitable spirit and can-do attitude attracted her to the women’s movement early on and whose wise and witty speaking ability allowed her to become what the Long Island Newsday described as “the respected mouthpiece of the women’s movement.” In 1974, she published a forward-looking edited volume titled Woman in the Year 2000, with provocative chapters by authors ranging from Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin to Alvin Toffler. In 1988, she donated her extensive feminist book collection to the Wellesley Center for Research on Women (as we were then called), after it was rejected by her own alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Her donation established the Madelyn B. Tripp Library, an intimate reading room filled with both important classics and lesser-known volumes that were influential in their time.

Recently, we added a particularly special volume to the library: A Woman with a Mind of Her Own, subtitled The Delicious Adventures of Maggie, Who Lived by Her Own Rules as Daughter, Wife, Mother, Businesswoman, Professor, Author, Public Speaker…and True Feminist (Archway, 2015). This book, part memoir and part posthumous tribute, was written by Maggie’s husband, Alan R. Tripp – Maggie’s biggest fan and a “women’s movement man” in his own right. This delightful and illuminating book combines personal anecdotes about Maggie in each of these roles with excerpts from her writings and speeches, to provide not only a historical record of an important figure in the second-wave women’s movement but also food for thought today.

Over the summer, Alan visited us here at the Wellesley Centers for Women, and here’s what he had to say about Maggie>>

If you look carefully through the New York Times Book Review this weekend, you might just find this new book. It is the perfect read for a train ride or the beach side (where I myself read it this summer), and its anecdotes are shareable even with young feminists (read: teenagers) of any gender. It’s the kind of book that even people who don’t call themselves feminists will relate to and enjoy, and yet seasoned feminists will learn something new, too. It’s a true feminist family affair!

Alan Tripp has described Maggie as both “blunt” and “charming” – a combination of attributes that helped her break down barriers and advance the women’s agenda in her time. As a young student at Barnard, she found the rules archaic and confining and took her complaints to the school’s famous dean, Virginia Gildersleeve. The dean challenged Maggie to “resign” if she didn’t like the rules, which Maggie did, choosing to continue her studies at Penn instead. There’s a wonderful story in the book about how, later, in 1968, Maggie moved to New York and stormed into the registrar’s office of the New School for Social Research asking to take courses “where the action is.” The registrar directed her to women’s studies, and the rest is history. From there Maggie became a women’s studies instructor, author, speaker, organizer, and general firebrand! I encourage you to learn more about the life of this colorful mover and shaker who is very dear to all of us at WCW!

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. is the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

We are in a fresh feminist moment, highlighted thanks to FIFA. Hang with me while I explain.

It is obviously ridiculous that the payout to the U.S. Women’s Soccer team for the World Cup victory is $2 million; the German men got $35 million last year. The $2 million is almost cute, considering it’s the same amount as the alleged bribe paid FIFA exec Jack Warner for his vote to make Qatar the 2022 World Cup site.

For a long time money has measured worth. I’m sure Warner, former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, and others could prattle on about why women don’t deserve a big payday: women’s sports are not big time. When you consider low ticket prices, turf fields (rather than grass), shabby player treatment (competitors stuffed into the same hotels and practice venues), it hardly looks like the big-money (men’s) World Cup event of July 2014.

For years, FIFA has treated the Women’s World Cup as an afterthought. When the U.S. women last won, in 1999, there was so little publicity that people only found out because Brandi Chastain whipped off her jersey, spurring debate about whether it was appropriate to show a sports bra in public.

Things are changing. The fashion forward will note that bras have officially become shirts (now they’re called “bralettes.”). The Women’s World Cup final became most watched televised soccer game in U.S. history. Commemorative t-shirts are selling out online. Carli Lloyd could earn $2 million (that number again!) just in commercial deals following her hat trick in the first few minutes of the game, the fastest ever in World Cup history.

Suddenly, rather than looking powerful, FIFA looks dumb and stale. For guys with a nose for cash, they are leaving a lot of it on the table. (You can’t watch a replay of Lloyd’s half-field goal online without viewing a commercial first.)

There is a big problem with the economics of how women are paid in sports (and elsewhere), which FIFA is helping to make obvious. I don’t want to say that money doesn’t matter (it does), but the U.S. women are playing out their power in a fresh feminist image that is a celebration of female skill and dominance. The effect is to make low wages look absurd. In much the same way that women have quietly come to own college campuses and advanced degrees, female athletes are demonstrating their clear-headed brilliance.

This isn’t about anger. It’s about proficiency—on the field and off. The U.S. Women’s World Cup win comes at a moment when “feminist” is no longer a dirty word among the under-thirty somethings. It comes as muscular Serena Williams is proving to be so dominant that I caught ESPN talking heads debating the other day if she might be the greatest athlete of all time. Who was it? LeBron, Michael, or Serena?

We have reached this moment through an interesting détente between old-time feminists and young women. We have don’t have to choose between sport girl or girly-girl: I saw an eight-year-old at a men’s soccer game wearing a party dress—and cleats. This new feminism is about pink and sparkles and mettle, all at the same time. It is Serena tough. U.S. women driven. Amy Schumer sarcastic. And Taylor Swift nice.

Pop star Swift, like the U.S. women’s soccer team, has amassed a base of girl fans and built an empire by reaching out and preaching friendship, self-respect, and girl-to-girl support. She has embraced stuff that is sweet: cats and cookie baking. But don’t be fooled. She was the one who forced Apple to change its payment policy to artists by threatening to withhold her album 1989 from iTunes (Apple fussed, then caved). That is power.

So when Swift invited the Women’s World Cup team to the stage before 60,000 fans during her concert at MetLife stadium following the team’s ticker tape parade in New York City, it was a visual demonstration of the new feminist might. It was women reaching out to one another and recognizing that success in one venue amplifies value in another. The bedazzled love—and support—suits them both. Blatter once famously said that the only way to get people interested in women’s soccer was for the players to don very short shorts. Now, he—and FIFA—just look out of touch.

Laura Pappano is writer-in-residence at Wellesley Centers for Women, a journalist who frequently contributes to the New York Times, and author of several books including Playing with the Boys: Why Separate in Sport is Not Equal>

The following blog article and corresponding photo was posted on the New York Daily News, June 3, 2015 by Alex Sanger, chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and member of the Wellesley Centers for Women Council of Advisors.

With Memorial Day behind us and summer here, most kids in New York are finishing school or preparing for camp or dreaming of pools and extended playtime.

But this summer will be very, very different for one 10-year-old girl in Paraguay. Because she’s pregnant.

The girl’s doctors discovered the pregnancy after she complained of a stomachache. But despite the fact that the girl is 10 years old and that doctors have identified the pregnancy — the result of the girl being raped by her stepfather — as dangerous and high-risk, the Paraguayan government has refused her access to an abortion.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, seven countries ban abortion under all circumstances, even to save the life of the mother. Paraguay is not one of them. Even though the law of the land states that abortions are legal in instances that pose a significant threat to the health of the mother, the Paraguayan government continues to deny this child access to a potentially life-saving procedure. This constitutes a cruel denial of the girl’s basic human rights, tantamount to torture.

My grandmother, Margaret Sanger, founded the organizations that would become Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned Parenthood Federation — to provide education and services to men and women in an effort to end injustices like violence against women and enforced pregnancy. She believed that providing access to contraceptives and reproductive healthcare was integral in empowering women to fully engage and participate in their communities and live the lives they want. I followed in her footsteps and, as the head of Planned Parenthood New York City, heard from countless women who needlessly suffered before abortion became legal in New York.

Cases like this 10-year-old’s make it clear that that needless suffering hasn’t ended, especially if you look abroad. For instance, one out of every three women in Latin America is a mother before her 20th birthday. 20% of all adolescent pregnancies occur among girls younger than 15, and are often the result of sexual abuse within the family.

At IPPF Western Hemisphere Region clinics, we provide contraception and abortion services to women and girls who need them. What our clinic staff has seen firsthand is that blocking access to abortion and comprehensive reproductive health care doesn’t stop them from being needed, or even stop them from happening — it just keeps them from being safe. Due in large part to extensive abortion bans throughout the region, 95% of abortions in Latin America are performed in unsafe conditions that threaten the health and lives of women.

In fact, according to the World Health Organization, complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls in developing countries. Specifically, in Latin America, girls who give birth before the age of 16 are four times more likely to die during childbirth than women in their 20s.

And yet politicians around the globe — including in Paraguay and the United States — have shut their eyes to common sense and public health by continuing to ban and criminalize abortion, even abortion in cases of rape or incest. Children should not be forced into motherhood and doctors should not be kept from providing life-saving care just because of political hurdles.

And in instances like the 10-year-old girl currently pregnant in Paraguay, government officials shouldn’t be able to act counter to the spirit of the law and put young girls in serious danger because of political whims or extreme beliefs.

That’s why a broad spectrum of human rights and international advocacy organizations are calling on the Paraguayan minister of public health and wellbeing, Dr. Antonio Barrios, to immediately intervene and grant the girl access to safe abortion services. By doing that, Dr. Barrios would be upholding Paraguayan law and following the advice of leading international medical authorities — and, potentially, saving the life of a very real girl who has already survived more trauma than a child of her age should ever be forced to encounter.

Alexander Sanger is the author of Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century, published in January 2004 by PublicAffairs. The grandson of Margaret Sanger, who founded the birth control movement over eighty years ago, Mr. Sanger is currently Chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

April 2016 Update: The wage gap cited has improved by 1% point since this article was originally posted in April 2015.

What is a woman worth? On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, we celebrate Equal Pay Day, a day to acknowledge the continuing gap in wages between women and men. By now, we are all familiar with the statistics – women employed full-time, year-round earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. While some of this gap is attributable to differences in worker’s education, training or experience, about 40% of the pay gap can be attributed to discrimination.

What does this familiar narrative mean for individual women? Let’s start with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). While girls have closed the gap with boys in high school science and math, women are losing ground in engineering and computing. While Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, recommends leaning in, Gamergate reminded us of the challenges and open hostility that women can face in tech fields.

Over one-third of women are employed in the health and education fields; four of the top 20 occupations for women in are these fields--elementary and middle school teachers, secondary school teachers, registered nurses, and nursing and psychiatric aides. Even in these heavily female occupations, men outearn women. For example, “males in nursing outearned females by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals.”

Service occupations, such as maids and housekeeping cleaners, personal care aides and child care workers, are the lowest paid of all broad occupational categories. This disproportionately affects the earnings of women of color; while 16% of all women work in service occupations, 24% of Black women, and 27% of Latinas, are employed in service occupations.

How do we fix this? There are a few proposals on the table right now that would go a long way to address this gap. First, raising the minimum wage would affect women who are disproportionately employed in low-wage occupations. Second, ensuring equal pay for work of equal value, and putting teeth into the Equal Pay Act, would reduce wage discrimination [link ]. Third, providing paid parental leave for all workers would make it possible for mothers with young children to stay competitive in the labor force, and for parents to participate equally in raising their families. Wouldn’t it be great if we never needed to celebrate Equal Pay Day again?

Nancy Marshall, Ed.D. is an Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) at Wellesley College. She leads the Work, Families and Children Team at WCW and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Wellesley College.

April 2016 Update: The wage gap cited has improved by 1% point since this article was originally posted in April 2015.

A press conference during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. Credit: UN/DPI 071031/Yao Da Wei

This article, by Susan McGee Bailey, was originally published on the Girl W/ Pen blog on March 20, 2015.

“Fighting for women’s equality is an arduous but necessary process, ploddingly pursued by dedicated women and men who refuse to accept a lesser role for women in society.” Jean Hardisty (1945-2015)

March is Women’s History Month, but the history being made in the U.S. is far from uplifting. Women continue to be an easy batting ball for political impasses. We continue to struggle for basics readily available in most other developed nations: e.g. paid family and sick leave, adequate childcare, health and reproductive rights. As an antidote to setbacks in this country—where we seem to be in the two-steps-back phase of the old ‘three steps forward, two steps back’ adage—I’ve looked at reports released in conjunction with this month’s 59th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). There are some encouraging signs. But progress is slow, uneven; the struggle for women’s rights and equality is far from over. Nevertheless, celebrating positive accomplishments can provide motivation needed to keep us all plodding ahead, no matter how soggy the road. Jean Hardisty knew better than anyone how critical plodding along is. For all of us around the country—and in various corners of the world— who knew Jean as a beloved colleague, mentor and leader in the battle for human rights and justice, there is no better way to honor her life and her work than to keep on plodding.

So, some good news gleaned from reports on progress for women since the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing:

• The global rate of maternal deaths in childbirth has dropped by over 40 percent;
• Adolescent births have fallen by more than 30 percent;
• Many countries have made significant gains in girls’ education, particularly at the primary school level;
• And people everywhere are paying more attention to gender gaps in access and opportunities on everything from health services and education to leadership, employment, and earnings.

Sadly, for almost every positive statement one can make, there is a ‘but’. And some ‘buts’ are so overwhelming it seems pointless to mention the positive. For example, awareness of violence against women has grown, but the violence itself has not lessened. A third of the world’s women have experienced physical or sexual violence. It is estimated that the number of girls among trafficking victims has increased by more than ten percent in the past seven years.

The Beijing meetings two decades ago were electrifying. A total of 17,000 women and men from 189 countries attended the official Fourth United Nations Conference on Women. Another 30,000 took part in the parallel NGO Forum held outside the capital in Huairou. We returned to our homes around the globe committed to doing whatever we could, both individually and collectively, to implement the Beijing Platform for Action. Many of those unable to attend the meetings in China were eager partners. In country after country, women and men worked together to ensure the "full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life."

But the transformative promise of the Beijing Platform for Action has not yet been fulfilled. The Platform was a call for a change in focus from women to gender. A call for recognizing that the structure of society and relationships between women and men must be rethought if women are to be fully empowered as equal partners with men. The Platform affirmed that women’s rights are human rights, that gender equality benefits everyone. In retrospect these called for changes in thinking and action were exceedingly ambitious given the ten-year time frame originally stated. Even after 20 years we have not succeeded. But ambitious goals generate ambitious plans, and ambitious plans are required to sustain commitment, passion, and determined action.

As the Women’s Rights Caucus stated last week in response to the draft declaration from CSW: “At a time when urgent action is needed to fully realize gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of women and girls, we need renewed commitment, a heightened level of ambition, real resources, and accountability.” Some UN member states may not share this perspective. Nations that do must speak loudly. Within a few days over seven hundred and 50 organizations had signed the caucus statement. NGOs representing women from all parts of the world and all strata of society must push, and push hard to ensure that the spirit as well as the letter of the Beijing Platform is carried forward.

None of this work is easy. Much of it is unpopular in certain circles. But we have pushed and plodded our way this far. A 40 percent decline in maternal morbidity is a major step forward. The progress in access to primary education for girls is impressive. Many more huge steps await. We have done it before; we can do it again. And again, and again, and again!

Susan McGee Bailey, Ph.D. served as Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and a Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies and Education at Wellesley College for 25 years. She attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

When most people think about how social change happens, the role of social science research probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, our histories of social change, social movement, and social justice have been shaped by social science research that provided crucial evidence to move things along. As head of the Wellesley Centers for Women, the nation’s oldest and largest academic women and gender focused research and action institute, now celebrating its 40th year, I’d like to talk about the role of social science research by women in advancing gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing by highlighting three studies by women that really made a difference.

In the late 1930s, Mamie Phipps Clark, a masters student in psychology at Howard University, began to wonder about the relationship between school context and racial self-concept in children. She devised a method of testing children’s racial self-concept using, first, black and white images of children and, later, black and white dolls. Using this method, she collected data from children in three kinds of schools--segregated schools (all black children, black teachers), semi-segregated schools (mostly black children, white teachers), and integrated schools (black and white children, white teachers)--in Arkansas and New York City. She found that, in general, black children in all three conditions were more likely to rate the white image or doll as “good” and the black image or doll as “bad”; however, these effects were most pronounced in the semi-segregated condition where all the children were black and all the teachers were white.

This research was later published with her husband Kenneth Bancroft Clark, also a psychologist, as a series of five papers between 1939-1947, during and after the time both were pursuing their Ph.D.s in psychology at Columbia University. These papers became a cornerstone of the famous “Social Science Statement”--a survey of research drafted by Kenneth Clark, Isidor Chein, and Stuart W. Cook, which made the case that segregation is bad for children--black and white. This statement was submitted as an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 and was ultimately cited in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954--proving that social science research really does make a difference in social change.

In the mid-1970s, Stanford-based psychologist Sandra Lipsitz Bem began to wonder how she might measure the limiting effects of traditional sex roles. This question had been raised by the women’s liberation movement, as more and more women became aware of--and concerned about--things like the “glass ceiling” and gender wage gap, as well as parenting differentials at home. Bem devised the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), a quantitative measure of traditional masculinity and femininity, which she published in 1974. Unlike previous sex role inventories, the BSRI allowed researchers to capture degrees of masculinity and femininity within the same person, rather than just rating an individual as either masculine or feminine. In addition, the BSRI introduced a new sex role category: androgyny. This category referred to people--male or female--who scored high in both masculinity and femininity. (People who scored low in both were referred to as “undifferentiated.”) Research based on the BSRI showed that women who scored high on androgyny showed levels of workplace success that were similar to men scoring high in masculinity, while women who scored high in femininity tended to experience more barriers to workplace success. Ironically, Bem was not tenured at Stanford despite many awards for her research, although Cornell subsequently rewarded her with a full professorship. Like Mamie Clark, Sandra Bem contributed to the outcome of landmark civil rights cases, this time in the area of employment. Bem testified as an expert witness in both the 1973 case against the Pittsburgh Press (ending the division of “help wanted” ads by sex) and the 1974 AT&T sex-discrimination settlement (ending many employment practices that discriminated against women). On a broader cultural level, Bem’s work also influenced how children are socialized about gender through books, toys, and television--in particular, widening the options presented to girls. In the long run, Sandra Bem’s research on sex roles helped establish the idea that gender is socially constructed and not merely inborn, expanding our society’s ideas about what it means to be a man or woman and opening up options along the full “spectrum of gender.”

In the mid-2000s, two political scientists--Mala Htun of the University of New Mexico and Laurel Weldon of Purdue University--embarked on a quest to discover empirically what really makes a difference in ending violence against women at the societal level. Examining data from 70 countries collected over four decades, these researchers determined that a single factor makes the most difference: the existence of an autonomous feminist movement within a country. In their provocative 2012 article titled “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975-2005,” these authors showed that “feminist mobilization in civil society” is more strongly correlated with the creation of policies that combat violence against women than any other factor that they measured, including percentage of women in government, activity of leftist parties, or relative national wealth. To quote these authors, “autonomous [feminist] movements produce an enduring impact on VAW policy through the institutionalization of feminist ideas in international norms.” They further state that, “analysis of civil society in general--and of social movements in particular – is critical to understanding progressive policy change.” What this comprehensive study tells us is that, despite the hurdles and setbacks that large-scale social movements inevitably face, they are, in the end, what makes a difference in bringing us closer to equity, justice, and wellbeing. And, on a more granular level, all of the large and small organizations that exist to advance social change within such movements are absolutely essential to achieving the aims we dream of. Htun and Weldon dared to use “big data” to illuminate a reality that common sense alone could not have revealed.

We must thank these and many other women social scientists for the painstaking work of bringing hard evidence to bear on our diverse social change efforts in the U.S. and globally. Social scientists, especially women social scientists, have played a crucial yet unsung role in bringing us closer to our shared ideals of gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing. Let us celebrate them this Women’s History Month!

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. is the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

Did those female gym teachers back in the early 1900s actually have it right? No one wants to return to bloomers and half-court basketball, but the coalition of female physical educators who ran women’s sports and fought takeover by the NCAA (which took control of women’s college athletics in 1980) were onto something. Their message--that sport should be about self-development, social skills, and fair play--sounds pretty great right now.

They found competition unseemly (that's a problem), but their broad recognition of college sport as a life and community-building pursuit is worth a reprise given the mess that has become the NCAA-led college sports world.

Right now we’re in the midst of soul-searching about what college sports should look like. A spate of lawsuits ask about the “student” status of student-athletes and whether they should be paid. Last month, the five wealthiest conferences--Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-12, and Southeastern--began a new era of freedom from many NCAA rules, gaining leeway to give more money to players. Where will this go? Will more universities develop athletes instead of scholars? (Some already do.) Will only marquis players get extra money? Will non-revenue-producing sports look expendable in a more commercialized environment?

The Knight Commission recently polled DI college leaders on their interest in exploring alternative models for competition and administration for some sports. Ambivalence won: 43 percent of respondents were interested; 37 percent weren’t. There’s a lot to figure out--and little consensus on where to go.

The college sports debate, let’s be clear, is a male conversation. It is ruled by big-time sports--football and men’s basketball--and the economic disruption they have created in the academic system. This is about competition and money. No wonder Cardale Jones, the third-string quarterback who just led Ohio State to the inaugural National Championship, was confused when he arrived on campus. His 2012 tweet: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”

If Cardale did not come to “play SCHOOL,” why should Ohio State--or any big time program--be other than a semi-pro team? While we’re here, what role should college football--with it's concussion and brain damage record--even have in higher education? The conflicts are moral, but dollars will rule.

The gym teachers saw athletics as integral to school; the problem today is precisely that they are not. High-powered programs with big revenues (most lose money, but a handful make a bundle) operate as independent commercial enterprises. The wealthy programs pay coaches what their peers in the NFL and the NBA earn. (Sometimes more!) Cardale Jones does have a point: He was brought to play football and bring money and success to the program. You can’t blame players for wanting to be paid. But is this the point of college sports?

As we celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day, we typically cite participation statistics and recognize how far women have come. But we ought to value the ideological roots of women’s athletics, not as a shameful past of milk-and-cookies patsy play (though it was some of that), but for the wisdom of recognizing the hornet’s nest of unbridled high-stakes competition on what should be the virtues of athletics play in a college environment. The athletic field offers lessons in teamwork, leadership, persistence, skill-development, problem solving.

A study I did with colleagues Allison Tracy, Ph.D. and Sumru Erkut, Ph.D. showed that this message is getting lost. We gave 828 college recruiters a detailed survey to explore how they valued varsity sports experience in judging candidates for entry-level corporate jobs. They saw the obvious--college athletes excelled at teamwork, which they considered a key trait--but did not recognize skills such as time management and organization required to play college sports. Interestingly, they did not rate male or female athletes differently.

Anyone who has called herself an athlete recognizes the personal benefits of sport. Money has become a spoiler in the conversation (heck, Olympic athletes are not “set” financially--far from it). It’s time to see that the payoff of college sports can come without ESPN “Game Day,” academically questionable athletes, or coaches paid far more than the university president.

Find that value on women's teams, in locker rooms, and at games that garner little attention, but build durable skills. Sure it’s embarrassing to recall a beauty “Queen of the Court” crowned at halftime or college contests that mixed opposing players to limit competition and hard feelings. But maybe the men steering the future of college sports should consider the great goods that women and girls have been bringing to the games they play--for years.

Laura Pappano is the writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and an experienced journalist who writes about education and gender equity issues in sports.

Below are links to two articles from good friends of the Wellesley Centers for Women—Susan McGee Bailey and Alex Sanger. Susan is the former, long-time executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW); Alex is chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and member of the WCW Council of Advisors. In their respective blog articles, they share their perspectives on the year 2014.

In her latest piece on Girl w/ Pen, Susan writes, "Hanukkah, then Christmas next week, followed by the start of a new year—a time of hope and beginnings. Why doesn’t it feel that way? For the past several days I’ve been searching for the bright spots. The ones that can provide the energy we need in the midst of so much darkness. Not an easy task. Each day new horrors erupt: the second anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre and still no reasonable national gun control legislation; free passes for racial biases and deadly police brutality; the sickening slaughter of school children in Pakistan; ongoing revelations of rape in the US military and on university campuses. Negative news can so easily obliterate positive signs in the struggles for equal rights. But all around us there is tangible evidence of the many ways feminist work contributes to positive progress for everyone... You can read the full article online.

In his latest piece on Huffington Post, Alex writes, "Once again, we've had a year of ups and downs, a year of strong stands for women's rights and crushing defeats. Here's a quick run-down of some of the most memorable moments of 2014. Last month, the Chamber of Deputies in the Dominican Republic put forward a measure to reinforce—and strengthen—the country's existing ban on abortions in all circumstances. Thankfully, Dominican President Danilo Medina vetoed the measure, urging legislators in a letter to decriminalize abortions in cases where the woman's life is at risk or in cases of rape, incest, or fetus malformation. " You can read the full article online.

What do you think have been notable events or moments of the past year? Share with us!

The mission of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College is to advance gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing through high quality research, theory, and action programs. Since 1974, work has generated changes in attitudes, practices, and public policy.

Let’s Celebrate U.N. International Day of the Girl by Supporting the Malala Yousafzais of Our World

This article was originally posted on October 11, 2012 on the Women Change Worlds blog. Today, Malala Yousafzai, was named a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She has also been awarded the National Youth Peace Prize, the Sakharov Prize, and the Simone de Beauvoir Prize.

I’ll bet that when the Taliban decided to fire their guns at 14-year old Malala Yousafzai, it didn’t occur to them that they might be making her the cause celebre of the U.N. International Day of the Girl, which is October 11^th. Although the Taliban might argue otherwise, Malala is everything a girl should be – intelligent, inquisitive, bold, brave, and a concerned, aware world citizen. She embodies and dares to live up to that oft-repeated maxim, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

What does it say about us when the global war on women – the ages-old attempt to keep women down through violence, silencing, discrimination, and worse – stoops down to attack young girls who haven’t even yet reached womanhood? I say “us,” because, on some level, we are all accountable for the collective consciousness that excuses violence against women in its many shapeshifting forms. No country, no population, is immune. Whenever something like this happens – something terrible and obvious, like the attack on Malala Yousafzai – all of us should stop in our tracks and ask ourselves, what am I doing that keeps the tacit acceptance of violence against women – and now girls – alive in the world…and how can I change that??

Malala Yousaufzai has been fighting for girls’ education in Pakistan.  Girls all over the world deserve education, and even though some challenging impediments have been identified by researchers and others, there is no excuse in this day and age for girls to be kept from schooling. None. The U.N. has made girls education a tenet (in Targets 2 and 3, to be specific) of its Millennium Development Goals – and in case you were wondering, we only have three more years, until 2015, before we are expected to achieve them. Malala Yousafzai is in a position to challenge the rest of us as women’s activist Audre Lorde famously did when she wrote, “I’m doing my work … are you doing yours??”

What are we doing to help Malala Yousafzai’s dream – and MDGs 2 and 3 – to become a reality? Not only in Pakistan, but everywhere, all over the world, including the United States, many girls still languish, along with their male peers, in indecently substandard schools and where staggering rates of sexual harassment and violence negatively impact social-emotional development and learning. The issue of a right to education doesn’t just apply to developing nations – it applies, too, in the developed world where different subpopulations often have differential access to a good education. We must look outward and inward as we reflect on these questions.

Girl activists like Malala are becoming more common and more visible in their efforts to create that “another world” that’s so famously “possible” – a world in which they would like to live, a world that will not only welcome their talents, their full participation, and their leadership, but also a world that will keep them safe and healthy, upholding their dignity and equality. In the United States, for example, I think of girls like Mary Pat Hector who, at age 10, founded Youth in Action USA (she’s now 14, like Malala) to fight violence in her community and communities nationwide. Her organization, which now boasts chapters in seven U.S. states, encourages children to get involved in change through volunteerism, peace rallies, and community advocacy trainings. I also think of girls like Hannah Salwen who, also at age 14, authored The Power of Half as a way to generate social-change
capital. It was witnessing homelessness in her city that inspired her to figure out how she and her family could make a real difference, and her “power of half” principle has since become a movement.

Malala, Mary Pat, Hannah, and so many more… These are girls who can’t wait – who are taking the bull of the global conditions they care about by the horns – perhaps because they don’t trust us to do it for them, or perhaps because they are simply aware of their own power and genius. Whatever the case may be, we must support them and help them build the brave new world that they would like to grow up in, because the world they envision is not just a world that will be good for them, it’s a world that will be better for everyone.

The U.N. International Day of the Girl is our opportunity not only to celebrate girls, but also to listen to them, lift them up, and ask them what they need from us to do more of the good that they are doing. I could have spent this column railing against the Taliban and the outrage of their violent attack, but how much better to highlight the work of Malala Yousafzai and girls like her. Let’s celebrate the International Day of the Girl by joining them and supporting them in their audacious, courageous work to change the world!

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

Courtney Martin, a friend of the Wellesley Centers for Women, journalist, author of “Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists,” and one of the founding directors of the Solutions Journalism Network, is a regular contributor to the New York Times online opinion pages. In her July 24th article, she writes, "...what working mothers really need are systematic ways to find and afford safe, local care options for their kids. While many parents scramble to find care in the summer months, especially for older children out of school, it’s a year-round challenge for families with kids younger than preschool age."

Read Martin's full article,"Child Care and the Overwhelmed Parent">>

More than two weeks have gone by since 276 young women were abducted from a high school in Nigeria,* and there has been relatively little attention to their plight from the international community and news media. These are young women who had returned to the school (which had previously been closed due to regional violence) to study for an important physics exam, the results of which could help them gain entry to a university and later into careers such as medicine and education.

Wellesley College, like many other colleges and universities in this country, has recently opened its doors to visits from prospective students--women from a wide range of backgrounds. As we share their anticipation and hopes, we might also take a moment to consider how in “one fell swoop” a group of terrorists, Boko Haram, violently intercepted the hopes of these young women who are of similar age. The other day, walking on our campus, I saw a group of local high school seniors in formal attire having their pictures taken by our beautiful lake, and I was touched by their pre-graduation excitement and, at the time, overwhelmed as I imagined the despair those young Nigerian women, aged 16-18, must be experiencing in the clutches of a depraved enemy.

Wellesley is one of the Seven Sisters’ Colleges--colleges with a historic commitment to the education and rights of women. If “Sisterhood” means something, then please lend your voices now; let the world know that this is unacceptable. Two years ago Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and almost killed as a member of the Taliban opened fire on her school bus. Once again, young women risk annihilation in their effort to become educated. We are in a position to assert our voices on behalf of these “sisters.”

What you can do:

• Use social media--hash tag #BringBackOurGirls Instagram posts and tweets in an effort to increase awareness.
• Organize/ Attend Peaceful Community Marches.
• Petition.
• Raise public awareness and show support for these women in a peaceful, law-abiding and effective way.

Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department, Wellesley College.

* The actual number of abducted students has been difficult to confirm.

The following blog article was posted onHuffington Post, March 25, 2014 by Alex Sanger, chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and member of the Wellesley Centers for Women Council of Advisors.

After two weeks of intense negotiations, the 58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women ended early Saturday morning with a strong call to prioritize gender equality and the human rights of women in order to achieve sustainable development.

The Commission was convened at the UN headquarters in New York to address the challenges and achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in improving the lives of women and girls in developing countries. While the MDGs resulted in a reduction of poverty in some respects, the goals furthest from being achieved are those focused on women and girls -- particularly on achieving gender equality and improving maternal health. With the MDGs set to expire in 2015, the Commission's outcome document will help shape priorities for the next global development framework.

The Commission specifically called for a stand-alone goal on gender equality, a move that was applauded by women's rights activists.

A stand-alone goal on gender equality signals that gender equality and women's rights are important in and of themselves, as well as a priority for governmental investment. It recognizes that sustainable and meaningful development must address the root causes of gender inequality, which deny women and girls an education, the right to make decisions about their bodies and childbearing, to decent employment -- and equal pay for equal work -- and to live free of violence.

The Commission also stated that the post-2015 development agenda must include gender-specific targets across other development goals, strategies, and objectives -- especially those related to education, health, economic justice, and the environment. It also called on governments to address the discriminatory social norms and practices that foster gender inequality, including early and forced marriage and other forms of violence against women and girls, and to strengthen accountability mechanisms for women's human rights.

The Agreed Conclusions reaffirmed the Cairo Programme of Action as well as the Beijing Platform of Action, which called for investments in "quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care" including emergency contraception, information and education, safe abortion where allowed by law, and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Furthermore, the Conclusions called for the recognition of the human rights of women to "decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality... free from coercion, discrimination, and violence."

Member States also recognized that progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals -- which include eradicating poverty and expanding access to health services such as reproductive health -- has been held back due to persistent "unequal power relations between women and men," particularly discriminatory laws, social norms, and gender stereotypes.

The governments expressed concern that several critical issues related to gender equality were not adequately addressed by the MDGs, including violence against women and girls; harmful practices such as early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation; women's and adolescents' sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights; women's and girls' disproportionate share of unpaid work, particularly unpaid care work; the gender wage gap; women's equal access to and control of resources including land; women's inheritance rights; and women's full participation in decision-making at all levels.

The Commission called for measures to ensure universal access to primary education, especially for girls and vulnerable youth, as well as measures to strengthen the ability of women to participate in formal and informal labor sectors. The governments also called for efforts to ensure that women's rights and health obtain the prominence they deserve in the next global development framework.

Women's health and rights organizations applauded governments who stood up for the rights of all individuals to live free of violence, discrimination, and barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services, particularly for girls. However, advocates expressed disappointment that a small minority of conservative governments spurred on by the Holy See--which holds special observer status at the UN -- held up negotiations by objecting to concepts as fundamental as gender and the human rights of women throughout the two weeks of negotiations.

In particular, advocates noted that, despite a 20-year legacy of UN prohibition of discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and increasingly on gender identity, government delegates gave in to pressure to exclude recognition of these violations in the final agreed conclusions. 

Alexander Sanger is the author of Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century, published in January 2004 by PublicAffairs. The grandson of Margaret Sanger, who founded the birth control movement over eighty years ago, Mr. Sanger is currently Chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

This will be the first time that female athletes are allowed to compete in ski jumping at the Olympics so it’s fitting that the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia open Thursday on the heels of National Girls and Women in Sports Day February 5th.

The satisfaction goes beyond the glow of victory after a long battle because access for female ski jumpers represents progress in the broader quest for gender equity. As in this case, athletics often carry meaning beyond the competition itself.

Sport is both a tool in the quest for political, social, and economic equality and a glass that magnifies the failings of fairness on a societal level. What happens on the field affects and reflects the world off the field (or the slope)-- and vice versa. The cascading events of the 1970s -- the rise of the women’s movement, passage of Title IX, and expanding sport and career opportunities-- express the relationship.

This is important, but well-trod territory. So three of us at WCW asked another question: How does this dynamic actually play out for the individual athlete?

Sports matter off the field, but precisely how do they matter? A study published in 2012 that drew data from polling alumni suggests a connection between college sports participation and higher earnings a decade after graduation. That data relies on a look back by those who had successfully navigated a career launch.

But how do recruiters on the front-end value a varsity credential? Does sports participation in college, for example, offer access to enter a corporate career?

Given the widespread assumption that sports are a steppingstone to business success, we wanted to know: What qualities do recruiters look for in new graduates, how are sports experiences evaluated, and do athletes have an advantage when being screened for an initial interview? Do male and female, black and white candidates fare equally?

We asked human resource professionals experienced in recruitment to complete a detailed online survey in which they selected from a list of eight leadership attributes the top four they seek in candidates, rate candidate profiles based on those qualities, and rank-order candidates to invite for an interview.

Recruiters received randomly generated profiles that varied sex (signaled by first name), race (signaled by African-American–related extra-curricular activity or not), and leadership experience (athletic or non-athletic). Extracurricular activities were varied to reflect leadership experience in a non-athletic activity (such as Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper or representative to the Board of Trustees) or varsity athletic experience as either a top basketball or track athlete. Candidates had similar GPAs, majors, career interests, and research and work experiences.

Our findings showed that among the 828 recruiters who completed the survey, 72 percent identified “ability to work in a team” as among the top four attributes. Recruiters rated athletes over non-athletes on the ability to work in a team and being results-driven. This held true regardless of a candidate’s sex or the rater’s sex or involvement with athletics as a leisure pursuit. At the same time, athletes received lower ratings than non-athletes on organizational skills, critical thinking, follow-through on tasks, and transferable skills.

The results were surprising and interesting on a few levels. First, it was striking that female athletes got the same “credit” for participation as their male counterparts. Second, even as raters saw athletes as being the classic “team player” and driven to produce results, they seemed unaware of organization skills college athletes need to juggle academics with daily practice, travel, etc. Third, while critical thinking skills may not be explicitly required of athletes, the lower rating suggests a “dumb jock” stereotype at play given that all candidates had similar majors and GPAs. Raters also did not appear to recognize that the follow-through of athletic training and preparation, like a range of other skills, had transferrable value outside of sport.

What does this mean for the individual athlete?

The message is that even though it has nearly become a cliché for managers and corporate leaders to extoll the virtues of athletic participation, the recruiters who serve as gatekeepers screening resumes don’t see it – beyond the obvious “teamwork” credential. Our findings challenge athletes to better articulate just what they are learning on the sport field and how that can be translated off the field. Athletes also must address recruiter beliefs that they struggle with organization and critical thinking. They must also be explicit in describing how positive skills they hone in sport will be useful in the workplace.

Overall, there is notable good news. We found that female athletes received equal consideration as their male counterparts from raters selecting candidates for an interview. Yet, if the experience of playing a college sport builds skills that are valuable in the workplace, our results show that both male and female college athletes must better communicate that message to recruiters, who may have spent their college years in the stands.

Let the Games begin!

This article was contributed by Laura Pappano, Sumru Erkut, Ph.D. and Allison Tracy, Ph.D. Pappano, writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) at Wellesley College, is an experienced journalist who writes about education and gender equity issues in sports. Research by Erkut, WCW associate director and senior research scientist, encompasses variations in the course of child and adult development. Tracy is a Senior Research Scientist and Methodologist at WCW, where she provides technical expertise in a wide range of statistical techniques used in the social sciences.

This time of year, many people are thinking about their New Year’s resolutions. More often than not, these resolutions revolve around things we’d like to change in ourselves or our lives. But what about the things we’d like to change about our world--the things that are bigger than ourselves and our own individual lives? This year, I’m advocating for a different kind of resolution--a resolution to connect ourselves to “the change we’d like to see in the world” through direct action in areas we have the power to influence. I’m convinced that, if enough of us did this, we would turbo-charge not only efforts towards social justice but also human well-being on a vast scale. Are you ready to see where you can plug in??

Those of us who work at social change organizations, like us here at the Wellesley Centers for Women, perhaps have it easiest because our very livelihood depends on doing work that makes a difference in the world. Yet, even those of us who work in this arena need to recommit periodically--to our ideals and principles, to our social change goals, to the targets for change that we have set and to which we hold ourselves accountable. At WCW, we are using a strategic planning process to help us do this, which requires us both organizationally and individually to look at our work--which includes research, theory, and action programs--and its social change impact. Even those of us who have chosen social justice or human wellbeing as our lifework must periodically review, refresh, and reinvigorate.

Just because we don’t all work for social change organizations, however, doesn’t mean there aren’t major ways we can make each a difference. What do you care about? What change would you like to see in the world? As great and necessary as organizations are in the social change equation, they are not the end-all and be-all. Individuals and small groups, even when they are working for change outside formal organizations, can make a monumental difference in outcomes for many through partnering, advocacy, endorsement, and financial support. As Margaret Mead once famously quipped, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Yet, the “power of one” is something to be reckoned with, too. We can look to history for inspiration. I would tell my students, for example, about an African-American “house slave” named Milla Granson who held a “midnight school” in her cabin each night to teach 12 fellow slaves how to read; once they learned, she took in 12 more--and did so for decades, until scores “forged their passes to freedom.” Can we imagine this kind of educational activism today? Just last week, I learned the story of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who, during the Holocaust, without orders, wrote and distributed transit visas, sometimes working in collaboration with his wife for 18 hours per day, even overnight, to produce them. Today, scholars estimated that he saved about 6,000 Jews and that anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 people are alive today because of the action he took. Both Milla Granson’s and Chiune Sugihara’s actions show us that there’s always something we can do, right from where we happen to be standing. So what are we waiting for?

All of us have some kind of expertise, passion, or resources that we can contribute to increasing social justice and human well-being in the world. It just takes a different kind of resolution. What will you resolve to do in 2014??

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College.

The following blog article was posted on Huffington Post, December 30, 2013 by Alex Sanger, chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and member of the Wellesley Centers for Women Council of Advisors.

As we reflect on the events of 2013, I can't help but think of the Clint Eastwood classic The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

When it came to women's rights, there was indeed ugliness: more and more states tried to restrict women's access to basic reproductive health care, and in El Salvador, Glenda Cruz was sentenced to ten years in prison for miscarrying.

Despite these setbacks, there is reason for hope. Here's my wrap-up of the top five wins for sexual and reproductive rights in 2013:

1. The rape and murder of a 23 year-old woman in New Delhi set off widespread protests throughout India. In September, an Indian court sentenced the four perpetrators to death, stating that the crime "shocked the collective conscience of India."

"In these times when crimes against women are on the rise," said Judge Yogesh Khanna, "the court cannot turn a blind eye to this gruesome act." The significance of this statement condemning violence against women in the world's second most populous country cannot be understated at a time when one in three women worldwide will experience violence in their lifetimes.

2. In the Dominican Republic, the Catholic Church filed a legal complaint against our local partner Profamilia, claiming that its ad campaign on sexual rights violated the Constitution. In May, the Fifth Civil and Commercial Chamber of the National District rejected the Church's complaint as a violation of freedom of expression, adding that campaigns like Profamilia's help to promote comprehensive sexuality education and responsible parenthood. The public and media support for Profamilia during and after the case was massive, but it was not an easy battle.

3. As more states sought measures to tighten abortion laws, some fought to make it more accessible. In June, Texas senator Wendy Davis rose to national prominence during a 13-hour filibuster protesting SB5, a bill that would further restrict abortion access in Texas. While the legislation ultimately passed, a vigorous protest from Davis -- and supporters throughout the country -- was heard loud and clear. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure into law that allows nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physicians' assistants who complete specified training to perform abortions.

4. On August 15, the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development concluded as representatives of 38 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean adopted an historic agreement: the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development. At this meeting to assess progress towards implementing the Cairo Programme of Action, governments recognized the important connections between sexual and reproductive health and rights and the global development agenda. More than 250 members of civil society -- including IPPF/WHR and our Member Associations -- helped forge this victory. The Consensus is the first UN agreement to include a definition of sexual rights, "which embrace the right to a safe and full sex life, as well as the right to take free, informed, voluntary and responsible decisions on their sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity, without coercion, discrimination or violence." With governments poised to adopt a new global development framework, this agreement will help ensure that sexual rights and reproductive rights remain at the center of efforts to reduce poverty and improve the well-being of individuals, communities and nations.

5. Perhaps the greatest "good" is the fact that despite fierce opposition, millions of women, men and young people throughout the world continue to fight to ensure that all people have access to quality healthcare and protection of their human rights. In 2012, we provided nearly 33 million services throughout the Americas and Caribbean with more than 75% of those services reaching poor and vulnerable populations. In a region where an estimated 95% of abortions take place in unsafe circumstances, the importance of access to contraception and accurate health information cannot be underestimated.

Alexander Sanger is the author of Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century, published in January 2004 by PublicAffairs. The grandson of Margaret Sanger, who founded the birth control movement over eighty years ago, Mr. Sanger is currently Chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

  WOMEN=BOOKS, the blog of Women's Review of Books (WRB), features reviewers and book authors discussing issues raised in WRB articles, and women's writing and publishing. Recent posts include:

Ruthann Robson writes in Hijab Hysteria, "The legal policing women’s headscarves is rooted in a mélange of sexism, xenophobia, religious bias, and racism. Unlike the niqab (veil), hijab as sartorially expressed by the headscarf does not obscure the face. While the niqab can raise concerns about identification and anonymity, which may be rational in some situations, such as a trial in which the identity of a person is a central issue, the headscarf evokes anxieties of a less logical sort." Read full blog>>

Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild writes in Free Pussy Riot!, "'Virgin Mary, become a feminist!' With this as part of their prayer, on February 21, 2012, several members of the dissident performance group Pussy Riot, faces masked by their trademark balaclava masks, mounted the platform in front of the iconostasis in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, roughly the Russian Orthodox equivalent of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in the heart of Moscow. After less than a minute, they were dragged off by guards. In the wake of this protest, Kirill, the Russian Orthodox patriarch, called on the government to criminalize blasphemy. And on cue, five days after the church incident, prosecutors opened a criminal case against the Pussy Riot members they could identify." Read full blog post>>

Ana Isabel Keilson writes in What Would Elsa Do?, "One of the advantages of being a graduate student at an “evil empire” university--one of those increasingly corporate institutions with a big endowment, lots of real estate, anti-union policies, a big business school--is that I can travel often to Europe on the company dime. Last March I found myself in Paris as I sat down to write a review of Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writing of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Read full blog post>>

Since 1983, the Women's Review of Books has provided a forum for serious, informed discussion of new writing by and about women, as well as a unique perspective on today’s literary landscape and features essays and in-depth reviews of new books by and about women. Women's Review of Books is published by the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, in collaboration with Old City Publishing.

This article was originally published May 10, 2013 on Huffington Post by Alex Sanger, chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and member of the Wellesley Centers for Women Council of Advisors.

Virginia and New Jersey have spoken - the former electing a pro-choice governor and the latter an anti. Did choice matter? Did women matter?

The Choice Gap in Virginia
Abortion was considered the third most important issue by Virginia voters, with the economy and health care coverage outweighing it. The Virginia electorate's views on abortion rights almost exactly mirror the national opinion. The 2012 national election and 2013 Virginia election exit poll breakdown are as follows, when the voters were asked if abortion should be:

Legal in all cases: 29% (National 2012); 27% (Virginia 2013)
Legal in most cases: 30% (National 2012); 33% (Virginia 2013)
Illegal in most cases: 23% (National 2012); 23% (Virginia 2013)
Illegal in all cases: 13% (National 2012); 11% (Virginia 2013)

Voters nationally and in Virginia generally vote for the candidate that supports their view, with the exception of the "legal in most cases" group, which tends to have a greater percentage voting for the anti-choice candidate than the "Illegal in most cases" group has voting for the pro-choice candidate.

Legal in most cases: 58% (Obama); 40% (Romney); 59% (McAuliffe); 30% (Cuccinelli)

Illegal in most cases: 22% (Obama); 76% (Romney); 17% (McAuliffe); 80% (Cuccinelli)

In other words, there is a 20-percentage point difference in voting patterns in these categories. The pro-choice candidates, Obama and McAuliffe, got 58% and 59% respectively of the 'legal in most cases' voter, while Romney and Cuccinelli got 76% and 80% of the 'illegal in most cases' voter.

This pattern is similar to the abortion gap in 2012. Romney got 29% of the vote of people who thought abortion should be legal, whereas Obama got only 21% of the vote of people who thought abortion should be illegal.

This is a pattern that has been seen repeatedly in national and state elections. The mostly pro-choice voter votes other issues more than choice, whereas the mostly anti-choice voter does not. That said, the raw numbers still favor by a slight margin the 'pro-choice candidate since the pool of voters in the 'legal in most cases' camp is larger by 7-10 percentage points than the 'illegal in most cases' voters.

The Gender Gap in Virginia
There was the usual gender gap in Virginia with men supporting Cuccinelli 48 to 45 and women supporting McAuliffe 51 to 42 for a 12-point gap, virtually identical to the 2012 Virginia gender gap for Obama of 13 points. The national gap gender for Obama in 2012 was 18 points, hence Virginia trails the national average.

54% of white women voted for Cuccinelli and 51% of married women. Women are not monolithic, to say the least, in their support of pro-choice candidates or Democrats.

The Marriage Gap in Virginia
A greater voting gap was the married-unmarried gap. In 2012, married voters went for Romney 56-42. Unmarried voters went for Obama 62-35, for a 41-point marriage gap.

In Virginia in 2013, marrieds went for Cuccinelli 50-43 and unmarrieds for McAuliffe 62-29, for a 40-point marriage gap, virtually identical to the national marriage gap.

New Jersey
In New Jersey, every group went for the popular anti-choice, anti-family planning incumbent, with 63% of men and 57% of women voting for Christie. Abortion rights were not a major issue in the campaign, not registering on the exit polls.

The messages from these campaigns include the non-monolithic character of women voters and choice voters. Issues other than choice, and even family planning, are not the primary determinants of many women voters. The gender gap is real but the marriage, income and race gaps are greater. Politicians have yet to make the compelling case that reproductive freedom is essential for women, and men, and that they should vote accordingly. The connections to issues perceived as of greater importance, like the economy, taxes and health care coverage, need to be made. Healthy families with planned and spaced children of one's choosing lead to increased women's participation in the economy, more productivity, and less health care expenditures and taxes. This is a message equally compelling to people who are married as those who are not, but so far only the latter group have gotten the message and vote accordingly, as they want to keep their life options open.

Alexander Sanger is the author of Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century, published in January 2004 by PublicAffairs. The grandson of Margaret Sanger, who founded the birth control movement over eighty years ago, Mr. Sanger is currently Chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

The controversy surrounding lack of women on Twitter’s board of directors as it is going public with an IPO, has rekindled interest in diversity on corporate boards. In research conducted at the Wellesley Centers for Women, my colleagues Vicki Kramer, Alison Konrad and I showed that having a critical mass of three or more women improves board governance. Catalyst (2007) and McKinsey (2012) subsequently reported that companies with diverse executive boards enjoyed significantly higher earnings and returns on equity. When there is a business case to be made for greater diversity on boards, the usual excuse is that there are too few qualified women, buttressed by the small number of female CEOs. But let’s look at the facts: not all male board members are CEOs. A board needs diversity in professional expertise as well as gender, race, and nationality. People making excuses for high tech companies’ lack of female board members point to the small numbers of women majoring in computer science. Again, not all male board members of high tech companies have technology backgrounds. In fact, most members of Twitter’s board members have undergraduate degrees from liberal arts colleges: one has a degree in English; another in Asian Studies. Couldn’t female experts in entrepreneurial management, intellectual property law, investment management contribute, for example, contribute positively within such a governance structure? It was smart of Twitter to include diversity of educational and work experiences on its board. Twitter (and all corporations) needs to stop making excuses and go for greater diversity, by including female, minority, and international members on its board.

Sumru Erkut, Ph.D. is an associate director and senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College where she studies women's leadership and co-led the Critical Mass on Corporate Boards study.

Social Justice Dialogue: Eradicating Poverty

More than the Gender Wage Gap…On Many Fronts the Economic News is Not Good for Women

In spite of attention-grabbing headlines like, “The Richer Sex: How the Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love, and the Family" (Liza Mundy, 2012), on many fronts the economic news is not good for women: and indeed for the poorest, the news is getting worst.

It is not good news when we examine:

• The gender wage gap that continues at all educational levels. In 2012, the median annual earnings for womenworking full-time were 76.5 % of men’s earnings and had barely changed since 2001. This is evident in the gap between the median earnings for women and men with Associate’s degrees ($42,300 and $55, 600, respectively), and continues through earnings for those with Ph. D. degrees.


• Racial/ethnic disparities among women. The gender wage gap is smaller between African-American and Hispanic men and women (89%), but it is much larger when compared to white men (64% and 53%, respectively). Although the median earnings of Black, Hispanic, and White women with less than a high school diploma are almost equal (around $380), the median weekly earnings of White women with Associate degrees is $678, compared to $595 for Black women and $611 for Hispanic women.


• The incidence of family poverty, particularly among households headed by women of color. In 2012, 18.4% of all families with children under the age of 18 lived in poverty. However, almost 49% of Hispanic, 47% of Black, and 38% of White single-mother households with dependent children lived in poverty.


• The inadequacy of full-time, year-round minimum wage earnings to support a family. In 2009, single mothers earning the hourly minimum wage of $7.25 earned just over $15,000--well below the poverty level of $17,285 for a family of three. These earnings are far below the median U.S. family income (almost $50,000) and the median earnings of dual earning households (over $78,000).


• The erosion of public benefits for the poorest families. The greatest income gap emerges in the discrepancy between the amount of income received by families with federal cash benefits known as TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and the federal poverty level. In 2012, not a single state’s TANF benefits for a family of three brought the family up to 50% of the poverty level, i.e., $8,641 per year. For example, the Massachusetts TANF benefit for a mother with two children under the age of 18 was $7,400 a year. Even when the value of food benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is added to TANF, only one state (Alaska) brings its families up to 80% of poverty level.


• The erosion of opportunities for economic advancement through education for low-income mothers. The ‘welfare reform’ policy of the mid-1990’s diminished access to education for TANF recipients. Prior to TANF, forty-eight states had counted participation in postsecondary education for periods ranging from 24 to 72 months; post-1996, women have had difficulty participating in even 12-months of vocational training. Instead, welfare-to-work programs have shunted women back into the same low-paid jobs without benefits they had previously.

The earnings and wealth gap is not a recent phenomenon; it has been growing steadily for three decades. However, only recently has it become a topic of general interest, particularly as the gap between the very rich and the very poor accelerated during a time of deep economic recession. This inequality gap has seeped into the national consciousness as it became a rallying cry for the “99 percent” movement, and trickled into the 2012 presidential debates.

Clearly, at the Wellesley Centers for Women an account of economic inequality is incomplete without the concerns outlined here: the inequalities among women, including the deep poverty of vulnerable families headed by women. In addition, we must address the often overlooked and alarming educational divide that exacerbates these economic concerns by eroding the possibility of social mobility through education, particularly for the poorest women. While access to college has become a mantra of the current administration, we must become more aware of and concerned with the educational divide as it affect low-income mothers – both in and out of the workforce.

Erika Kates, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, working in two major research areas: Gender and Justice with a focus on women, and low-income women’s access to education.

Sources:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. March 2013. The Value of TANF Cash Benefits Continued to Erode in 2012. Washington D.C.: CBPP.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. 2012.
U.S. Census Bureau Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2012 (based on 2009 data) Tables 692, 703.
American Association of University Women. Fall 2013. The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap. Washington D.C. AAUW.

Part II: Social Scientific Perspectives on Making Change in America

Yesterday, in my reflections on the 50^th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I blogged about how the issue of pursuing change can be viewed through a social science lens--not just through a political or philosophical lens. The social scientific approach is to gather data and marshal evidence in ways that demonstrate why change would be beneficial or what kinds of actions help us get there. Today, I focus on some social science-related insights resulting from my own reflections on the March, indeed, on the whole civil rights movement and today’s human rights movements, with reference to the work we are doing here at the Wellesley Centers for Women.

Here are just a few of the social-science based social change insights that come out of our work here at the Centers:

• The importance of education in remaking America into the nation of our dreams, and the importance of the quality of life in early childhood as a foundation for educational and later success.

In America, we agree that education is the gateway to success. Yet we also know that children must come to school ready to learn – physically, emotionally, and academically. We know that quality childcare helps children become ready for the classroom; that healthy eating and physical activity contribute to children’s mental and social readiness at all stages of development, and that early language learning is key. What we are also learning is that, when education includes social-emotional learning and social justice components, children and youth do better in school. Therefore, making sure that all children are ready to learn, that there are family, school, and community supports for this, and that our approaches to education are holistic are keys to social change in the direction of Dr. King’s dream and, indeed, so many of our dreams for an America characterized by equality and economic success, justice and jobs.

• The significance of mental health not only as an article of social justice but also as a bellwether of our success in its creation.

Whether we are getting it from news reports or simply by looking around in our schools, workplaces, and communities, we see a mental health crisis in America. Depression is more epidemic than the common cold, and we hear more and more about such issues as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. On the one hand, we have begun to recognize a connection between mental ibellness and certain forms of violence – and while mental illness certainly doesn’t explain all forms of violence in America, it raises our level of concern about why people experience mental illness and whether we are doing enough about it. Fortunately, the Affordable Care Act will make mental health treatment and care available to more Americans.

Researchers and clinicians alike are coming up with innovative treatments and prevention strategies. One example involves accessible, Internet-based interventions for families with a depressed member. Another example is using the “neurobiology of connection” to understand and address an array of troubling phenomena, from drug abuse to bullying, that may have mental health consequences or correlates.

A social change-oriented, systems approach to research on mental health helps us to evaluate how individuals and families are affected by social conditions – everything from economic strain to violence in their communities to discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, age, or ability. For example, we now know that trauma-informed strategies help us to promote school success in children from the most vulnerable families. And learning how hard it is for low-wage women to utilize family leave policies or access higher education helps us to improve both policies and strategies. It also helps us to understand how we can create optimal conditions for human development and social justice simultaneously. Research helps us understand that mental health itself is a social justice issue.

• The centrality of gender equality to all forms of social progress--educational, economic, social, cultural, and legal.

When girls feel like school isn’t designed with their needs in mind or STEM education pushes them to the side, they disengage. Yet, when girls are given equal opportunities in sports, they thrive – demonstrating that gender equality policies such as Title IX make a difference. Research can also help us make subtle but important distinctions in social policy. For example, bullying discourse often glosses over school-based forms of gender-based violence, leaving girls in the cold. Armed with the information provided by gender-sensitive research, policy-makers can and do make policy more effectively.

At the Wellesley Centers for Women, we not only conduct primary and secondary research, but we also maintain a close relationship between research and program development, recognizing that evaluation research is a critical component in the social change equation. Social change-oriented research institutes and centers, whether they focus on women and gender or something else, are an under-celebrated link in the chain of effective social change. In fact, research and researchers can be and are often social change catalysts. This is what I am celebrating today!

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.

August 26, Women’s Equality Day, always raises mixed feelings for me. I can join in the spirit of celebration over how far women have come from the days when my graduate school professor announced in class that if the political science department ever hired a woman, he would leave. When I was told I could not change my name from my married name to my “maiden” name; when flight attendants were all women who had passed an “attractiveness” test; and domestic workers had no rights to fair pay nor protection from assault and sexual harassment. And, of course, I remain grateful to Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY), who almost single-handedly pushed the creation of “Women’s Equality Day” through Congress in 1971.

The date was selected to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote (though a meaningful extension of this right for African American women in many states did not occur until the 1964 Voting Rights Act). The passage of the 19th Amendment was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York. Workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities now participate with Women’s Equality Day programs, displays, video showings, or other activities.

This is all good. So why my lingering sense of discontent when the subject of equal rights for women comes up? It may be based, in part, on personal experience. I lived in Illinois in the 1970s when the very last states were scheduled to vote to ratify the Equality Rights Amendment (ERA). Having passed Congress and been ratified by 35 states, it seemed that the ERA was on the path to becoming part of the Constitution.

But Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of the right-wing, anti-feminist women’s movement, decided to stop Illinois’ ratification of the ERA, making that goal explicit by starting an organization called STOP ERA. Her followers baked pies for Illinois legislators with the message Stop ERA hidden inside. She traveled tirelessly to argue against the ERA. She raised the specter of “horrible consequences” that would follow from its passage, such as women in military combat and unisex bathrooms. On June 18, 1980, Schlafly succeeded when the Illinois legislature failed by five votes to ratify the ERA. Our current Congress would never pass its equivalent, though it has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since 1982.

Certainly, another source of my discontent is the ongoing plight of low-income women, whose safety net is now shredded, so that life is increasingly unmanageable and the struggle to keep food on the table is harder every year. As the gap in income widens inexorably, these women and their children are, far from equal, being left farther and farther behind. A growing number of women continue to live in fear of violence, wage theft, and abuse by employers, with little access to public services and usually facing a hostile welfare system. Their rights are limited by their lack of earning power and, often, their lack of a good education.

Fighting for women’s equality is an arduous but necessary process, ploddingly pursued by dedicated women and men who refuse to accept a lesser role for women in society.

But women do have a number of avenues to redress unequal treatment. The Violence Against Women Act became law in 1994 (though periodic reauthorizations are still a struggle). Title IX became the basis for the transformation of women’s and girls’ participation in sports in 1972. Women have successfully sued for equal pay for equal work, equal access to promotion, equal right to a military career, and pregnancy rights in the workplace. In international settings, the pursuit of rights for women is increasingly seen as an important key to unlocking the potential for improvements for a country as a whole.

Women’s rights organizations continue to organize, lobby, and litigate in areas that remain intransigent, such as family leave, child care, equal pay, protection from sterilization, domestic violence, and the rights of women in prison. Massive problems, such as human trafficking, persist. Fighting for women’s equality is an arduous but necessary process, ploddingly pursued by dedicated women and men who refuse to accept a lesser role for women in society.

“Women’s rights are human rights”--a current anthem of the women’s movement--remains a vision, a goal, and a noble quest that we pursue at the Wellesley Centers for Women. As we say, “A world that is good for women is good for everyone."

Jean Hardisty, Ph.D., was a senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College until she passed away in 2015. She was the founder and president emerita of Political Research Associates (PRA), a Boston-based research center that analyzes right-wing, authoritarian, and anti-democratic trends and publishes educational materials for the general public.  

Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine article provides a follow-up on the women of the so-called Opt-Out Revolution that the Times first heralded in 2003. The Times rightly points out the price these women have paid--and the forces that pushed them out in the first place--the culture of Motherhood and an inhospitable corporate culture among them. Erin Gloria Ryan, at Jezebel.com provides an even more pointed critique of the “promises” of opting out.

But both articles miss the most important point–the Opt-Out Revolution was not a “revolution,” it was a media creation that took a drop in employment rates among mothers of infants in the 2000 Census, and the experiences of a few women with husbands with high salaries during an economic period when the haves seemed to have it all--pre-Great Recession--and used that mythology to suggest that the reason women don’t fare as well in the workplace is because “they choose not to” (see the cover of the original NYT article). In fact, a study by Sharon Cohany and Emy Sok published in the Monthly Labor Review reported that the labor force participation rates of mothers of infants, with husbands earning in the top 20 percent of incomes, had the largest declines in 2000, but their participation only declined nine percentage points, from a high of 56 percent employed in 1997 to 47 percent in 2000, and 48 percent in 2005. While the decline was real, at least for women with husbands who could support the family, it was hardly a revolution.

Meanwhile, media and popular attention remains focused on the message that women should solve the problems we face--of unfriendly workplaces, long work weeks, glass ceilings, and some men’s unequal sharing of household and parenting activities (often justified by workplaces that still think all men have wives who will support their husband’s careers)--by their personal, individual actions, rather than by our collective action to challenge the inequalities built into our economy, inequalities of gender, class and race. Women in the professions and in managerial jobs, who are most likely to be forced out, need redesigns of their fields to allow women--and men--during their parenthood years, to parent in the ways they value. There are top employers who have already figured out how to do this, including American Express, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric and Bristol-Myers Squibb. These changes to support working families need to be combined with changes that address the growing income disparity between the top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent, and the consequences this has for financial well-being, as well as for the best interests of women, children, and men.

Nancy Marshall, Ed.D. is an Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) at Wellesley College. She leads the Work, Families and Children Team at WCW and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Wellesley College.

"A world that's good for women is good for everyone."

Welcome to Women Change Worlds, the new Director’s Desk blog of the Wellesley Centers for Women. At WCW, also known as the Centers, we do research, theory, and action that promotes justice and wellbeing for women and girls, their families and communities – and we’ve been doing it since 1974. This year, 2012, marks our official entry into the blogosphere, where our goal is to speak up and shape conversations – national and global, regional and local – that impact our core constituencies and the multiple contexts in which their lives unfold.

Here at WCW, our motto is “A world that’s good for women is good for everyone.” But what exactly does “a world that’s good for women” look like? The truth of the matter is, there are worlds within worlds, and a world that’s good for women acknowledges women’s similarities as well as women’s differences. This includes obvious and widely acknowledged differences – such as race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, religion, education level, income, social class, sexual orientation, gender expression, (dis)ability status, and age – but also less visible or less widely-acknowledged differences such as health status (physical or mental), experience with violence, rural/urban location, political attitudes, and even worldview. This “worlds with an s” approach acknowledges that not all women have the same perspectives or the same needs, yet, at the same time, all women deserve a life of decency, dignity, education, equity, power, health, and wealth.

As I state in my Director’s Message on the WCW website, today’s world has been shaped over multiple generations by feminist and womanist critical theory and social activism, yet many women and girls still do not enjoy full equality, freedom of expression, or even the provision of basic needs and rights. What gives?? What remains to be done?? What do we need to do to steer the world in the direction of that world that is not only “good for women” but is also “good for everyone”? These are the kinds of questions that this blog will tackle.

Since I took the helm of WCW in July, the popular media has debated such provocative issues as whether women really can or can’t have it all, whether there is or isn’t such a thing as "legitimate rape,” whether a nearly all-male panel of Congressional representatives is actually qualified to make decisions of national scope about birth control, what to do when a woman who testifies in favor of contraception is characterized with a misogynistic epithet in the national media, whether men are “in decline,” whether women are becoming the richer sex, whether father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames are or aren’t discriminatory, and whether opportunity really is the route to overcoming oppression for women and girls worldwide. Just before I got here, we were having national and global conversations about issues such as whether the Arab Spring actually benefitted women, whether Title IX is still relevant, and even whether there are enough women writing op-eds. Now, as we hurtle towards a presidential election, we are talking about – although not loudly enough, in my opinion – whether and how women voters and women’s issues matter in this presidential election year. While I was chomping at the bit to blog on all these topics as I settled into my new position, my point is simply that the stream of women’s issues that matter – or issues that matter to women – is swift-moving and never-ending. Any moment can be the right moment to jump in.

In the worlds of scholarship and scientific research, not to mention the worlds of theory and program development, knowledge production can crawl at a snail’s pace. And rightly so, given the necessarily deliberate and systematic nature of such work: turning over every stone, ruling out every alternative explanation, testing every theory, and piloting then evaluating every program. Yet, with age and expertise comes authority and responsibility. Our researchers, scholars, theorists, and practitioners have invested years, careers, and at times even lifetimes into this work on behalf of women and girls, their families and communities. With nearly four decades of expertise at our collective disposal, those of us at WCW have a lot to say about the issues of the day. Women Change Worlds is our new platform.

While blog posts can never replace peer-reviewed journals and books, the immediacy of blogging plays in indispensible role in public discourse. From my perspective, blogging serves as a platform for bringing diverse constituencies into conversation and as a staging ground for organizing action. Blogging also serves as a needed bridge between the academic and the everyday. Blogging helps break through the walls that have kept the ivory tower isolated from everybody else and the silos that have kept thinkers of different disciplines from talking with each other. Blogging facilitates what I like to call “the politics of invitation” – a “build it and they will come” route to “another world is possible” – inviting us to engage towards change differently than the more adversarial “politics of struggle.” Thus, it is in this spirit that I hope you will join the conversation at Women Change Worlds, so that together we can make that world that is good for women, girls, and for everyone.

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College.